What is the artistic impulse uniting Robert Hooke's drawings of insects, George Stubbs's studies of horses and Damien Hirst's pickled shark? In this new and spirited account of British art , Jonathan Jones argues for empiricism. From the Enlightenment to the present, British artists have shared a passion for looking hard at the world around them. Jones shows how this zeal for precision and careful observation paved the way for Realism, Impressionism and the birth of modern art.